Evenepoel's INEOS rumours "too stupid for words" Patrick Lefevere blasts

Yesterday has seen a big rumour emerge, in which it is understood that INEOS Grenadiers have a large amount of interest in signing Remco Evenepoel, despite his current long-standing contract with Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl Team.

Patrick Lefevere has quickly reacted to the rumours upon being interviewed. With a set of leaders abandoning the team and Egan Bernal still recovering from his injuries, the team is prioritizing it's young talents and looking to build on the coming years. This however leaves them with a work force much inferior to that of previous years, and INEOS boss Jim Ratcliffe has reportedly been in contact with Lefevere regarding the Belgian. , albeit likely not on a serious tone.

In conversation with Het Laatste Nieuws, Lefevere said that “if in a marriage someone is cheated by his partner, then that person involved is always the last to know. I will not say more about that. I have signed contracts for five years, with Remco as well as with Soudal, Quick-Step and Specialized," he answered.

"Alaphilippe is also in 'prison' for another three years. Nothing is binding in life, but I will do my very best to keep those agreements. I don't like to use the word 'family' because if you are married you can always divorce today, but there are no intentions in that sense," he confirms.

Having been contacted and put under the wing of the Belgian team since his junior years, Evenepoel's success story is one that heavily includes Quick-Step. In a short career he's experienced unrivaled amounts of pressure, frequently being termed "the new Eddy Merckx", suffered career-threatening injuries at the 2020 Il Lombardia, and returned right away for his Grand Debut at the 2021 Giro d'Italia debut where he failed to finish. The turmoil and pressure put on him from fans and media has always been immense as Belgium saw what looked to be it's next Grand Tour star.

Eventually in 2022 everything clicked. After winning Liège-Bastogne-Liège in May, Evenepoel shifted his focus into climbing. He won the Clasica San Sebastian, and his very strong opening week at the Vuelta a Espana put him in a winning candidate position. Finally, he broke the nation's long-standing winless streak at a Grand Tour, but went on to improve his record even further by taking a dominating win at the Elite World Championships. This amount of success has caught a lot of interest within cycling's deepest pocket.

“Then apparently that ghost story of that message has started to spread like wildfire;" Lefevere continued. "But now it has taken on a life of its own. Almost the whole world has tried to call me. Everything is for sale, but give me a reason why our boss would sell his team to another billionaire? That will not happen. It's too stupid for words. Is there not a very small chance of water? 0.00 percent. For me it's unmentionable."

Lefevere was clear that the transfer would not happen, and one would be incredibly hard to imagine following Evenepoel's growth and evolution under the team's guidance. "I liked that Remco and Patrick [Evenepoel] called me to reassure me, but actually I had to laugh with the whole saga."

"I happen to have dinner with Patrick on Thursday and we're going to discuss how we're going to go about it all in the coming weeks: the ceremony in Brussels, that race in Binche, and so on. They both urged me not to believe the Ineos saga," he concluded.